asudevil wrote:part of the issue with this goes back to people not really using a sub feature for what its there for

Yes, I plead guilty as charged.

TBH, when I advertised for my sub, I was ready to give up on this whole game/site/hobby/thing/whatever. I'd been in a run of games that were really no fun at all, for various reasons, and then had some other stuff IRL that massively cut down on the time I could sit in front of a computer for non-work purposes. I was in two games at that point, and rather than ragequit the whole site, I tried to do what I imagined was the decent thing & find permanent subs for both - according to my evidently imperfect understanding of how the whole name-a-sub thing should work. I only got one, and I took it gratefully.

In the meantime - who knew? - it turned out that I recovered a bit of my enthusiasm for the game. Lucky me. Seems like I've benefited from the auto-surrender-doesn't-count bug in this case, and it doesn't make my stats look bad, for whatever that's worth. Again, lucky me. If the consensus that I thought I'd felt earlier doesn't exist, then I'll very happily shut up & go away.

rd45 wrote:Maybe if the sub surrenders - automatically or by pressing the button - the surrender should count against the sub, and the game should immediately revert to the original player, who takes it back on from that point. The original player is free to continue, or to find another sub if that's necessary.

Yes, to echo Asu's point I think you misunderstand the purpose of the temporary sub facility. The idea is when you are not able to play or enter orders (presumably because you are away or have real life issues preventing you having access) then a sub takes over until you return. Then you take the game back. Therefore what you suggest is not an option; if the original player was back and able to be aware that the sub had gone, then the original player would have taken the game back and the sub would never have surrendered. Therefore since the assumption is the original player is not available / does not have site access, trying to hand the game back to the original player makes no sense.

Well, what if (hypothetically) the sub had surrendered in the week they'd been advertised for? Is there any chance to maybe implement, or consider, a "name a sub for a limited time, then you're automatically returned to game" option, where if the sub surrenders in that agreed upon amount of time, it's not counted against the original player?

Also, keep in mind if this is only for a couple days...we also now have the "pause game" feature...which we used to not have.

Also, this sub feature replaced the OLD system of "change your password and give it to someone" on the site for when you are gone...then they would log as you. At that time, no one would play a couple games and pawn off a couple more. It was a take all my games and help me out while I gone. I think the fact we have made subbing "easier" has lead for it to be misused a bit.

Captain FANG, forum team championships WINNERPart of the surviving nations of WW4/Haven

Unless I am in the cheater's subforum. 99% of what I say is NOT as a mod.

I Love Italy wrote:Well, what if (hypothetically) the sub had surrendered in the week they'd been advertised for? Is there any chance to maybe implement, or consider, a "name a sub for a limited time, then you're automatically returned to game" option, where if the sub surrenders in that agreed upon amount of time, it's not counted against the original player?

That is just way over-designed for a hypothetical problem, ILI. Just choose your sub wisely and get on with life. (And let Dipsy get on to other things.)

"As a general truth, communities prosper and flourish, or droop and decline, in just the degree that they practice or neglect to practice the primary duties of justice and humanity." WHS

ILI, again I think you miss the whole ethos of the temporary sub facility. There is no concept of trying to give control back or anything, because the basis is the original player is not there, otherwise they would not have a sub. You can achieve exactly what you asked because the original player can take the game back AT ANY TIME. So you ask can you appoint a sub for a limited time...yes, you get back on and take the game back. If you want to appoint a sub for 3 days, then on the third day you log in and take the game back. Done.

But the whole point about temp subs is that the sub is doing you a favour. Therefore the sub NEVER suffers for anything about the game. If the sub surrenders, the surrender counts against the original player; this may seem unfair, but it is up to the original player to choose a trustworthy sub. The other side of the coin is that without this rule, and sub asked to sub 'for a couple of days', who agrees on that basis, could find themselves trapped if the original player never had any intention of returning.

ILI, again I think you miss the whole ethos of the temporary sub facility. There is no concept of trying to give control back or anything, because the basis is the original player is not there, otherwise they would not have a sub. You can achieve exactly what you asked because the original player can take the game back AT ANY TIME. So you ask can you appoint a sub for a limited time...yes, you get back on and take the game back. If you want to appoint a sub for 3 days, then on the third day you log in and take the game back. Done.

But the whole point about temp subs is that the sub is doing you a favour. Therefore the sub NEVER suffers for anything about the game. If the sub surrenders, the surrender counts against the original player; this may seem unfair, but it is up to the original player to choose a trustworthy sub. The other side of the coin is that without this rule, and sub asked to sub 'for a couple of days', who agrees on that basis, could find themselves trapped if the original player never had any intention of returning.

I'm the sub in question who auto-surrendered. I very much appreciate rd45's tact in not bringing my name into it (very classy, thank you sir), but I do think it raises issues with the site that bear discussion. I'll say from the top I'm not criticizing and don't have a better idea.

Very much first off, neither rd45 nor myself fully understood the Substitute feature when I took over for him. Clearly it is meant to be temporary, we didn't understand that when we originally made the substitution. I signed on with the understanding that I would get some ratings credit for playing this game. It turns out that being a sub can ONLY hurt you: autosurrender counts against you, but nothing good will ever count for you. What that really means is there's no good reason for anybody to ever take on a substitution. While I'm not making excuses for my own auto-surrender, this basically means that for rd45 to get what he wanted (someone to permanently take over his spot) he would have NEEDED to surrender, and incur the penalty for doing so. I don't think that's fair. There's a big difference between suddenly failing to show up, and personally recruiting a sub so that the game can continue in an organized fashion. This site and its ranking system is largely built around punishing surrenders, but if somebody can pass the baton in an orderly fashion to somebody else so that the game can keep going, that should not be punished at all, in my opinion.

So, second off, the reason that I auto-surrendered is that when I entered the game, it was fairly clear to me that the board needed a stop-the-leader alliance against Germany. Any Mod who can read the messages can hopefully confirm that I tried pretty hard to get such an alliance going, and I was either ignored or rebuffed. The only person who wanted to talk was Germany. At no point were other powers seriously willing to put aside old grievances, and it was extremely obvious to me that Germany would win in such circumstances, so after several turns of very sincere effort, I just gave up. I even informed my fellow players I was giving up since none of them cared to fight Germany, and I was perfectly willing to ungive-up if anybody decided to care to avert a German solo. I actually didn't realize I had autosurrendered, I had actually thought that I'd ordered at least one of my units to Hold each turn. Is that still considered an NMR? I'm somewhat confused by this point. I knew I was in for a loss, but I thought I could avoid the indignity of an NMR by ordering at least one unit to hold.

This isn't an idle point to me. I have a pretty good record on this site; I also didn't want to incur a bad result for rd45, even after it was clear that I couldn't much influence things.

Did you know there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home? It’s true. She’s there now. She’s always there, just out of your sight. Always just out of your sight.

Hi Keirador -Let me offer you a public thank-you, and a public apology.

First, thanks for being a great sub. It wasn't a very good position, but you obviously gave it a heroic effort. I was pretty demoralised at that point - not only by that specific game, although I can't pretend it wasn't a factor - but you stepped in for me, so I got the chance to take a bit of a break from it all. That meant that I could come back to the whole game of Dip with some fresh perspective - without that chance, I might have given up altogether. I want to thank you for that. And thanks also for your kind words.

Second, I'm sorry that I landed you in the crap. You didn't deserve to take a hit on your own reputation. I came out on the lucky side of this bug that we discovered between us - so for any admins reading: if there's a way to get that surrender switched over onto my stats & away from Keirador's, I'll gladly take it.

And, for the wider audience, if we still have one - I realise that this particular case is not regarded as a legitimate use of the name-a-sub feature, and I'm not trying to go back over all that. But, I'd like to second Keirador's point that it maybe shows up some features of the site that could benefit from discussion. Maybe there's some room to talk about how surrenders could be avoided, rather than to focus only onto who to sting for them. I don't know if this thread is the best place to do that - if there's a better one, or somewhere where it's already in hand, maybe someone who knows their way around better than I do could point to it - I have a couple of ideas forming, and I'd be glad to contribute. Thanks.--rd45

Hey Keir...being a sub...should NEVER hurt you either...you found a bug which gave you a surrender...and I bet if you PM dipsy he'll wipe that one from your record. But you are right...the sub is NEVER supposed to be helped or hurt. Cause its a part time thing for a week or two or WHATEVER that you are putting a very small amount of time into the game by comparison to the other player and only doing it to help someone out while they are unavailable.

Again, if you want to talk about permanent replacement...that's a whole different can of worms. But yes, there are always a lot of people who post for "subs" and then say "I just don't want to play anymore"...so I personally always say to those people when I see those posts...that they should surrender and Ill pick it up because then I can gain the rating.

The other side of that is if I pick it up after you surrender, then it DOES affect my rating (if I don't have a shield)...so I would be less willing to pick up a crappy spot on my own...but then I don't mind perm subbing for someone, cause their spot sucks anyway.

But those are all different issues.

Captain FANG, forum team championships WINNERPart of the surviving nations of WW4/Haven

Unless I am in the cheater's subforum. 99% of what I say is NOT as a mod.